THE SONNETS TO ORPHEUS by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Robert Temple
BOOK IINTRODUCTIONTHE SONNETSRAINER MARIA RILKEROBERT TEMPLE'S WEBSITE
Look! Why no constellation called “The Horseman”
In the night sky? For it is oddly stamped on us:
This pride of earth. And so is this figure,
Who drives, reins in, and is carried.

Is it not so? - hunted and then broken in,
This wiry and tough nature of Being?
The path and the turning: And yet an impulse, comprehended:
New horizons. And the two become one.

But are they really? Or do they both not truly aim at
The path which they take together?
Anonymous, they set asunder the food from the table.

Also, the astral correspondences deceive us.
Still, it gives us pleasure to believe in the figure
For a while. It suffices.


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